Make Your Own Pizza Night - a cheap and easy party idea

As a Bostonian, I pride myself on recognizing a good happy hour special, a restaurant with exceptionally fresh seafood, and the best place to shake it on a Friday night. That being said, what local doesn't enjoy a night in with friends and a 6-pack of Sam from time to time? Then, of course, the question becomes - what's for dinner?

Well I did a little experiment last night, and it was such a success, I feel the need to share this great find. I invited J and Packie over - we cranked up the "pop hits" station on TV, cracked a few beers, and created 4 beautiful pizza pies.

I've always been afraid to try making my own pizza for a couple reasons -
1) I don't have a pizza stone - turns out this is not a problem at all!
2) I've had so many delicious pizzas in this city - could I really create one delicious enough to choose this option over takeout?!

Turns out the answer is yes!! It was simple, cheap and delicious. And the best part is - my friends had a blast making their own pizzas!


Here's what we bought and how we used it:

• 2 bags pizza dough (just ask where they keep it in the supermarket or you'll be walking around for days)
• 1 jar plain marinara sauce
• a huge bag of mozzerella cheese
• mushrooms, green peppers, onion
• pepperoni
• 1 can minced clams 
• 1 head of garlic
• 1 package of basil

The beauty of this is that you can get any toppings you want, no one has to compromise. You can mix n' match, experiment, or just create your favorite pizza and tell everyone else to buzz off. Our groceries came to $25 total (not including beer). ;)

We started out with the oven at 400 degrees - turns out this is too hot for my particular oven...but you'll have to assess based on yours. You know your pizza is done based on two things: 1) when you lift it up with a spatula and the bottom is firm and 2) the cheese is melted. If these two things don't happen at once, you may need to adjust the heat...we turned ours down to 350 to give the cheese more time to melt.

Spread some flour on a baking sheet and roll out your dough (we used half a ball of dough per pizza - 1 pizza of this size can feed 1 person). Turns out I don't have a rolling pin - no worries, throw some flour on a small bottle and you've got yourself just the right tool. When you've made it the size you want, roll up the edges a little to make a crust, then decorate! I recommend using only a little sauce so you dont end up with a soggy pizza. We did all our toppings then covered them up with cheese - Santarpio style!

We cooked them one at a time - and ate, drank and danced in between! There's no set time for how long the pizzas will need to cook - just look for the signs of done-ness. Ours took about 10 minutes each.

Check out our masterpieces!!! We made the following pizzas:

• Pepperoni, green pepper, basil, red sauce, cheese
• Clams, olive oil, basil, garlic, cheese 
• Mushroom, green pepper, basil, onion, red sauce, cheese
• Pepperoni, green pepper, mushroom, onion, basil, red sauce, cheesse

Fantastico!
Little B

PS - does anyone have suggestions for making a homemade pizza even better? Secret ingredients? Special technique? Please share!